Snoop Dogg, left, and Wiz Khalifa will perform together this week in Holmdel and Camden.
“We’re more like brothers than a business relationship,” says Wiz Khalifa of Snoop Dogg. The rappers, who have collaborated on songs such as “Young, Wild and Free,” “You and Your Friends” and “That Good,” will perform both separately and together on their High Road Tour, which comes to the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel on Aug. 2 and the BB&T Pavilion in Camden on Aug. 5.
Presumably, Khalifa, 28, feels like something of a little brother to Snoop Dogg, 44.
“I remember hearing Snoop’s music in ’93, when it first came out,” said Khalifa, talking to a group of reporters in a phone interview. “It was when West Coast rap was really hardcore, or looked at as hardcore, but it was something that I gravitated towards just because of the generally smooth sound of it. It didn’t really come off as gangster rap to me. … ever since then, he’s been able to just move through the times, like him signing with (Master P’s record label) No Limit in the late ’90s, and then having songs like “Beautiful” with Pharrell (Williams), to reinvent and to re-create and to really establish himself.
“There’s nobody else in the game like Snoop, so just having that history and being able to grow up listening to his music, and then being able to meet him and be an acquaintance of his is really cool, but the fact that he’s still going and still adding to his legacy is super dope.”
Khalifa — whose hits include “See You Again” (with Charlie Puth), “Black and Yellow” and “No Sleep” — will be at New Jersey’s two largest amphitheaters for the second year in a row, having visited them last year while on tour with rock band Fall Out Boy.
This time out, he says ,”I wanted to do something that was more oriented towards my core audience, and doing something with Snoop just felt like … I mean, it just felt like the perfect opportunity to bring me and Snoop together and make it a great fan experience, too.”
In the course of the interview, Khalifa was asked if the tour will address the upcoming presidential election in any way.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with it,” he said. “That’s what me and Snoop usually do, we make lightheartedness out of a heavy situation. So, while educating people, we’ll also put our own spin on it and let people know how we really feel.”
Both shows start at 7 p.m., and also feature Kevin Gates, Jhené Aiko, Casey Veggies and DJ Drama. Visit livenation.com.
